Wednesday, December 2, 2009

The Grammy nominees were announced tonight, and I'm confused. Some of the categories make perfect sense. Take Record Of The Year for example. All of these songs were huge hits within the last year. The same goes for Album Of The Year. On the other hand, some of the choices are unbelievably... bad. In the Best New Artist category, the Silversun Pickups are nominated. I know that their latest album, "Swoon", was very popular, but they already had an established fan base of great size. The definition of the category is...

"For a new artist who releases, during the Eligibility Year, the first recording which establishes the public identity of that artist."

They had two singles break into the top ten of the Billboard Modern Rock charts, both from their debut album. I'm not saying I dislike the band, I think it's cool that they're being recognized by the Academy, but still. Also, Keri Hilson's first major recognition came from the 2007 single "The Way I Are", featuring Timbaland. It seems to me that the Academy is very loose on eligibility rules.

I just think that a lot of the choices feel like they are the same as last year's nominees. Almost as if they had trouble finding more current music, but plenty of fitting music was released. I'll write another post about the topic later this week.